They came to precinct conventions with a video tape from the Robertson organization on how to take over a precinct convention. Then they went step by step replacing county delegations, then state delegations until today most Republican state parties are run by the Christian right supporters that Robertson was first and best to organize.

he got out of it a mailing list of 3 million and a lot of influence in the GOP.I heard this from Greg Palast - or another participant in a NYC workshop that were advising Dems that gaining power is NOT an electoral thingy.

Had they, however, had a strategy of coopting Democratic talking points and watery versions of progressive goals - in other words, had they been under the influence of a center-leaning bunch like the DLC on our side - they would not have been and those people *would* have walked away from the party.

Bush* uses a lot of liberal rhetoric - think about compassionate conservatism, No Child Left Behind, or the interventionist rhetoric he uses to justify the Iraq War. He puts a liberal spin on a lot of his agenda.

I wouldn't call it "liberal" rhetoric, but it's certainly more moderate than the reality.

But that's just the thing. Bush can *sound* moderate on the campaign trail to soothe the center, but his base has no reason to doubt what he'll do in office. I understand the need to sound moderate during a campaign, but when you combine that with an enormous credibility problem with your base, as is the case with the Democratic party, you're in trouble.

Even if Roe remains intact over the next four years, which I doubt, you can bet your ass that more restrictions will be applied to reproductive rights. The RRs have gotten plenty of movement on other fronts as well, especially in education.

...that he didn't think people were ready to have Roe vs. Wade overturned. If one of our leaders said something like he didn't think we were ready (that being the only reason given) for something like single-payer health care, you could imagine the repercussions on the far left.

I'm googling and can't find it. Even so, Bush doesn't have a credibility problem with his base, as I say. Even if Roe isn't overturned, they know he'll keep chipping away. They can trust the party, no matter what the rhetoric is.

Actually, I think the progressive reaction to a Dem saying that the country wasn't ready for single-payer health care would be relatively muted. We *KNOW* they're not going to do anything really meaningful on that front - it's no longer a surprise.

Also, it occurs to me that the GOP benefits from killing Roe slowly instead of at one fell swoop, because it keeps their religious base secure that much longer. Meanwhile they still get sops on vouchers, etc.

But I can point out how ineffective it is. If people care about whether or not they are ineffective, they might learn something. The rest I kind-of don't care about from the standpoint of how I spend my time trying to affect change.

They have embraced their politics and their rhetoric in a way unimaginable 25 years ago.

Emphasis mine, of course.

And yet the modern conservative movement is over thirty, maybe even over fourty years old. They spent years building the infrastructure to be able to get the support they need to stay in power, rather than fracturing the right and remaining a minority. Had they seceded because of some of Nixon's more liberal domestic policy accomplishments like the EPA, or Reagan's failure in getting the Republican nomination in 1976, I imagine they wouldn't be so powerful.

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